Ricardo Ramírez Requena

RICARDO RAMÍREZ REQUENA (Bolívar City, 1976) is a poet and bookseller. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Literature at the Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV). He has been a finalist in the “Week of Urban Narrative” (2010) and a finalist in the Stories Conference of the Metropolitan Polyclinic (2011 and 2013), and his texts have been published in Spain, Colombia, and Mexico. Ricardo has been a collaborator on Los Hermanos Chang, Prodavinci, and FicciónMínima, among other digital publications, and on Literales, in the Tal Cual newspaper, and PapelLiterario in El Nacional newspaper. He has taught at several Venezuelan universities and is currently Professor of Western Literature at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, where he leads diploma courses in creative writing. He also works in Marketing Coordination and Customer Service at Editorial Alfa. He was a finalist for the Equinox First Prize of Poetry Eugenio Montejo for his poetry collection Maneras de irse (Ways to Leave). In 2014, he won the 14th Trans-genre Award, sponsored by the Sociedad de Amigos de la Cultura Urbana, for his book Constancia de la lluvia. Diario 2013-2014 (Constance of the Rain. Diary, 2013-2014).

Photo by EFRÉN HERNÁNDEZ ARIAS

Ricardo Ramírez Requena

PLAZA VENEZUELA:FEBRUARY DAYS

February 5, 2014

I finished my class. Today we read French baroque poets in the first course. Then, Anglo-Saxon imagists (early poems of Pound, Eliot, Williams. Their premises: name reality as it is. 2. Beauty. 3. Avoid didacticism. 4. Privilege of image, etc.). I took the subway with a student, and we talked about Plaza Venezuela. Francisco lived one year here (he is from Turmero). Here he read Baudelaire. Here his parents fell in love.

I was on my way home, and everything was quiet and lonely. On Wednesdays there are no hot dog vendors, and the area is lonelier than on other days, but this Wednesday was strange. It seemed like a Sunday.

When I passed the Torre Polar, crossing Montevideo St. near the payphone on the corner, I saw a strange shadow reflected by the light pole beside my head. I felt like someone was watching me. The street was an open field. Arriving at the other corner, Pancho, the gray-haired neighbor’s dog, jumped and barked. I thought it was because of me, and I asked the dog what was wrong, but it was because of the motorcycle, which arrived quietly. Time became liquid and thick. Two young men. I remember the gun of the one who was behind. I never looked him in the eye. They took two bags from me; I gave them the cellphone and a silver chain. He wanted my wedding ring. It doesn’t come off my finger. They asked if the ring was gold. I lied: I said it was silver (thanks, goldsmiths of the world, for white gold).

The ring did not come off my finger.

They didn’t kill me.

The motorcycle started slowly; the young man who was driving watched me, without hate or mockery or anger. It was compassion. I know it was a perverse empathy.

I called Blanca, my wife, twice (I live in a 3rd-floor apartment), and she answered and ran downstairs. Some neighbors from the building approached me and opened the gate.

Blanca had two nights of ugly dreams and two days nervously looking out for my departures and arrivals.

She dreamed that I was lost.

I’ve never been robbed in my life.

Much less in front of my house.

This is a new notebook.

The young men took the other one, with my diary for the last two months.

They took away my book of French baroque poetry (El amor negro), published by Pre-Textos. They took my Huyssen book, edited by Adriana Hidalgo. They took one of the diaries of Rafael Castillo Zapata, which I had already read halfway through.

As I entered my home, the only thing I could think of was to write. Open a new notebook and write. Before that, the lock was changed; we called banks to cancel cards, we called and cancelled the cellphone (the robbers had time to send a text message to my mom, asking her about my identity card number), I talked with my family, we ate.

I lit a candle.

I had two dry whiskies.

I wished I could sleep.

I have a notebook, a pen, words, and I’m alive.

I can still write.

I was robbed, but I can still write.

And I’m alive.

February 12, 2014

Maybe I should delete the political references from this diary and stay with the literary.

Is this possible in this country?

No, it is not possible. Nor ethical.

February 13, 2014

When will 2014 really start?

Three were killed yesterday and dozens injured and arrested.

February 14, 2014

Dawn has been cold in Caracas since mid-January, but it has only rained a couple of times. On the subway, a woman reads Anne Frank. At the Los Cortijos exit, dirtiness everywhere and plenty of sun.

It is Friday, payday, and dozens are imprisoned at the protests. Life seems to go on, more embittered, with hundreds of people getting off from Chacaíto to Los Cortijos to get to work.

I have Cröhn’s disease, and today I must look for my medicine. The bus to the Social Security pharmacy takes time to arrive. There’s a crowd today. With our cool boxes, ice packs, medical prescriptions. The streets, quite lonely. The schools and universities, closed. Upon my arriving at the Social Security office, a female worker says, sarcastically: Welcome to Alcatraz. Some look at her, surprised. She replies: It’s that this place is very far away.

What people are reading today, here at the Social Security office: Caracas CCS, Últimas Noticias, Walter Riso, Dyer. Only one person has a copy of El Nacional. The headlines read: 125 students imprisoned or isolated. A lady tries to convince another about the normality of the shortages. A mentality of the poor, an ethics of misery. I see more books: self-help. Only one woman reads El poder andino, by Carlos Alarico Gómez.

February 15, 2014

Violence continues in the country, and this doesn’t seem to matter to the government. We communicate by Twitter and other networks because TV channels, as well as newspapers, censor themselves. In principle, they should report the torture that the boys have been subjected to, then document and disseminate the information. Must strongly criticize the pérezjimenista environment and the repressive spirit within chavismo. Focus on the release of detained students and on the murders. Ask people to write about this. Understand that there’s a left minority, with an inferiority complex, that gained power protected by the military to do the same things they themselves criticized. Not the serious left; no, the left that was in league with the military. The remains, leftovers. Very different from the experience of other Latin American countries. Far removed from the democratic tradition. Too nineteenth-century, smelling of dung, resentful. Not the best talent in a political trend.

We cannot forget that Pérez Jiménez lasted a bit more than ten years in power, and in the sixties, his influence was still considerable. That Pinochet gained power in 1973 and ruled for eighteen years. Twenty-four years later, his influence is still powerful in Chile. Think about a way out of chavismo, should consider this, and think about the country seriously, not solely with concerns for immediacy as twenty years ago.

We need more high-minded politicians. To guide action towards the release of the arrested, the decriminalization of protest, human rights.

Whenever we remember that there’s no printing paper for newspapers and books, we must also remember the thousands of copies of the biography of Fidel Castro that the government published and gave out at the Feria del Libro.

The developments of this night have been atrocious. Are we very critical or very condescending with these students? They are brave. But I’m afraid for them.

What did I do at their age?

February 16, 2014

We face a militaristic and authoritarian State, capable of the worst tactics against an unarmed population.

Today I’ve finished the 2008 Diary of Rafael Castillo Zapata. I transcribe some lines, from contention to serenity and from public to private:

In fact we don’t have a more solid foundation to resort to than those that our writers have provided during the XX century, and especially poets, although they have been read by an obvious minority (and precisely for that reason, because poetry hasn’t been converted into an ethical reference for the majority in this country, our democracy is suffering this dangerous crisis; to reaffirm the bonds between poetry and democracy would be one of the aspects regarding which we could and should say something).

February 17, 2014

Since Thursday, tanks of the National Guard take over Plaza Venezuela, especially around Torre Polar.

With large shields, the Guards spend the day there. At the end of the evening, they gather their things and leave.

The government has been protected one more time: Seniat, the Ministries.

What remains are the citizens, the residents of the zone, alone with the night and its thieves, alone with the night and its shadows.

February 18, 2014

Day of goose bumps.

Many people in Chacaíto and further out. The government closed five subway stations.

Leopoldo López surrendered, next to the Martí statue.

They let us get out of the office at noon.

Plaza Venezuela: a basketball hoop and people playing near the fountain. Near to Abra Solar, guys playing baseball. Lots of motorcycles.

A stage where people sing and make fun of Capriles, López, and Machado.

There’s no way through the area, only by way of Avenida Libertador. A lot of trash, but it’s being collected.

For them, the detention of López is a triumph and a joy.

The people of PDVSA, concentrated since early morning, are gone, bored, to another place.

In Valencia it seems that there are injured students.

At any time, it is going to rain.

In Intelligence, a new TV show on AXN, in its third episode (it’s just the first season), a member of MI6 talks to an analyst of the CIA who wants to negotiate information. She says that she can try to attract “the interest of the governments of Venezuela or Russia” in the sale of certain secrets. The MI6 agent mentions that the secret must be important since she is willing to leave her country and go to two countries that are infinitely worse. The CIA analyst says that she can go to China, where she has friends. The MI6 agent insists that her destinations would be worse than that.

There have been six days of protests in the country, and there is no clear agenda or goals at midterm. In the meanwhile, the government is becoming more authoritarian, militaristic, and investigatory. A democratic dictatorship or a soft dictatorship, but it is becoming more and more severe.

February 19, 2014

So far, two days of more repression. Tomorrow San Cristóbal and Táchira state will be militarized. I fear for my family.

We are all afraid. A dreadful fear. There are six dead, five by shots in the head. Many injured and dozens arrested.

Chavismo has shown its real face. A face that we feared but, paradoxically, that we expected.

Normality is missing.

Today there was a small earthquake in Caracas. Today, in addition, Simón Díaz died. I’ll never forgive this government since it let his death pass unacknowledged because of the current crisis.

February 20, 2014

Today is the birthday of my older brother, in these days of madness.

“Why didn’t we leave before” is the question that wanders around in many people’s thoughts, in these days.